Education

All posts tagged Education

There seems to be a fear in our society about asking a question that people may find, well, pick a word: scary, un-ethical, non-politically correct, otherwise ridiculous etc. People seem to be concerned about looking foolish or G_d forbid, racist. But why should this be the case. I truly believe that if anything in the world is going to change questions need to be asked and people need to think about the answers.

Last year I attended college, taking an Access to HE course in order to gain entry onto my current degree programme here at the University of Kent. During one of the classes the topic being discussed was over-population and scarce resources. Quite innocently, I will explain*, I remarked that in Africa we cull all sorts of species if their numbers were reaching unsustainable levels and that perhaps we should consider culling people for the same reasons. As you can imagine this idea invoked involuntary outbursts of laughter closely followed by objections to even having thought about it. My question is WHY? Continue Reading

Firstly, I apologise for being away so long. The work load increased quite dramatically at college towards the end and I was really busy. However, I will attempt to post more often. In the meantime, I would just like to add a little note about where I am now… Continue Reading

Below is an essay I wrote for sociology. Please have a read, and comment, I will be writing a follow up within the next week as to my thoughts on what education is like now. After listening to people like Sir Ken Robinson, I have some definite views on education.

You might have read my earlier posts when I mentioned this, but in the next post I want to try and expand on my thoughts. Perhaps it is a good time as I have now returned to education and in September, I will be entering University as an undergrad. Exciting times.

In the mean time, please let me know what you think of the ideas in my essay.

Sociological approaches to education with reference to class, gender or ethnicity.

The Functionalist approach whose view on society as a whole is one that society does not change, should not change and does not need to change. It is fine the way it was, bearing in mind that functionalists idea of a perfect society is the 1950’s model of society, with the nuclear family consisting of the father going out to work and the mother ‘keeping house’ and looking after the children. Along these lines, functionalists think of education as a means to teaching boundaries, preparing children for the move into working in a society. The belief is that education should be there to teach children values in terms of respect, loyalty and individual attainment. Meritocracy is the idea that you advance in education on merit. Everyone is subject to the same rules, uniform and exams, and everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed. Failure or success being a measure of ones own merit or intelligence. Therefore, what you get when you leave school is what you deserve. Which leads onto the functionalist view that society is also based on a meritocracy approach. People are in the jobs they are in because that is where they are meant to be. Power for example is not a problem in functionalist society as everyone is where they should be, for example, a banker, having progressed though education and having attained his position through a meritocracy based system, deserves his position and society needs him in this position. Continue Reading

Great video. Sir Ken has a great way of getting his message across. Found this on TED.com blog. I do love TED.com. Great stuff on there. Just a pity the TED conferences are so expensive to go to, but thankfully they post the videos for us mere mortals. Enjoy…

I am publishing this post, not so much for its content, rather for the way that Hans Rosling presents his stats. I first came across him on a programme called The Joy Of Stats (BBC4 I think). Link to that clip below the TED video.

He really does make it really easy to process the information you are seeing, Continue Reading

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Okay, thanks to Sir Ken Robinsons’ post on Twitter, I was directed to this blog posting by Seth Godin. In my years of working in the hospitality industry, I couldn’t agree more with his “Third method”.

I have probably tried all three over the years, and with experience on my side, I don’t think I could have come to any other conclusion. Admittedly, it doesn’t work for everyone. There are those that need to be pushed and those that need to be hand-held. For this reason I have always resisted the idea that you have to treat everyone the same. People are different and need to be treated differently.

A conversation for another time maybe, anyhow, a good read.

…open the door. Give people a platform, not a ceiling. Set expectations, not to manipulate but to encourage. And then get out of the way, helping when asked but not yelling from the back of the bus.

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Have any of you read anything by, or video of Sir Ken Robinson? I have an app, TED.com, and while browsing the talks happened across one of Sir Kens’ talks. Can I just say, if you have any interest in education or the way government policy affect education, then you will be interested in what Sir Ken has to say. I can’t help but be, what would it be, inspired, utterly convinced, shattered (that he isn’t Minister of education). Although, I suppose the idea that any government would be willing to put someone with such views in a position of power at this stage would be naive.

He makes so much sense, there should be a radical change in the education systems of the world. I have been saying this for some time. Obviously not as clearly or as articulate as Sir Ken does, and to be fair, I have never really thought about what would be the best way, I just felt that the education system was not working.